Coffee presses such as the French press are known in the art. Such presses involve steeping coffee particles in water, particularly hot water, to extract flavor and then transferring the flavored water to a drinking vessel.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,559,274 discloses a beverage making device for making a beverage from a liquid and a beverage making material. The device includes an outer housing, an inner housing, and a filter member. The outer housing is configured to hold a mixture of the liquid and the beverage making material. The inner housing is configured to be received within the outer housing and is configured to slide within the outer housing. The filter member has at least an outer peripheral edge coupled to the inner housing, and the filter member is configured to filter the mixture to provide the beverage as the inner housing slides within the outer housing. Such devices require specialized bendable filters having pull tabs in order to detach the filters from the inner housing in order to replace the filters or clean the inner housing. Further, because the filters must be bendable, the filter member must comprise an elaborate superstructure on the inner housing to support the filters. Furthermore, as with French presses, the device of U.S. Pat. No. 7,559,274 does not completely separate the made beverage from contact with the mixture containing the beverage making material because the contact remains through the filter member. Such contact permits further liquid to pass into the made beverage from the mixture after the beverage making is complete, which can impart undesirable flavors into the beverage.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,849,784 discloses a coffee or tea filtering press includes a hollow cylinder having top and bottom openings, a perforated removable cap which encloses the bottom opening, a removable piston which is inserted into the top opening and pressed downward to force liquid in the cylinder through the perforated cap, and a support to hold the press above the mouth of an open vessel. Such presses are not self-contained beverage makers because they require an external vessel to collect the filtered liquid, therefore requiring the provision of a separate device from which to drink the beverage, which is highly inconvenient when such a separate device cannot be found.
There remains a need for a self-contained beverage maker that includes a provision for collecting the beverage to permit drinking the beverage directly from the beverage maker, and which is simple to use, easy to clean, easy to maintain and in which the parts are easy to replace.